Trapping season in Vermont begins on Oct. 26. Residents and visitors who enjoy use of public lands in the state should be aware that trappers can legally set traps on many public lands and are not required to post signage warning of hidden traps.
Hunting season is upon us. The pastime is part of the foundation of the state’s history and legacy.
The Bombers from Bronx are on the brink of elimination and looking forward to a quiet, although painful, winter. It hurts to get beat by a team from Texas and thrown into a dumpster in San Antonio at the Alamo. If the Mex Army ran into a buzz saw there, the Yanks are just about to feel some pain.
Should Vermont taxpayer-funded government lawyers do free legal work for private law firms and companies? Or should the State be reimbursed for that work? Those are some of the questions that need to be asked after the recent Vermont Supreme Court decision, Doyle v. City of Burlington Police…
Of all the 50 states, California has been blessed with every advantage. A mild climate. Fertile land. Tall timber. Mining riches. Strategic location for shipping, trade and finance. Great universities. Glorious scenery. And, of course, Silicon Valley, the world-leading center for high technology.
The New York Yanks are in deep trouble now after losing to a team with a salary of $44 million less, with none of their big time sluggers doing anything and now it is all over. The winter will be very sad for these "savage" players.
As a private citizen, Donald Trump was out of options. He had zero credibility after a lifetime on the grift. His phony “University” cost him $25 million in lawsuits; banks were reluctant to extend him any more credit; and his business failures were becoming the stuff of legend. Even his suc…
What happens on the global stage certainly has implications for us all. But it’s the things happening in our communities that matter most. It is that localism that shapes many of our day-to-day decisions. It is what happens in our schools and town halls, at our chambers of commerce and churc…
I’d like to say, “Thank you,” to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and PBS for the series, “Country,” about American country music. I watched all eight episodes, which are now available via streaming. I’m grateful not only for the music history, but because Burns also gave me a welcome respite…
A new report from the National Audubon Society, “Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink,” describes the profound impact the climate crisis will have on North American bird species. This report comes on the heels of the youth-led and inspired Global Climate Strike just two weeks a…
Editor’s note: Vermont By Degrees is a series of weekly columns written by representatives of colleges and universities from around the state about the challenges facing higher education at this time.
I have a confession to make. I love drinking with a straw. I know, I know, plastic straws are filling our oceans and littering our beaches. I’ve seen the photo of the turtle with the straw stuck in its nose that started the public crusade to ban straws, and feel badly about it. But still, th…
There were perhaps a thousand grateful Vermonters attending Paul Bruhn’s memorial service last Friday. A Vermont native with an uncanny ability to unify random and sometimes opposing forces, Paul saved many a beloved place in Vermont over his 40-year professional life. Some say he saved Verm…
Americans today frequently talk about the aggression of Iran, and worry what Iran can do to hurt the U.S. Usually missing from these discussions is any mention of how the relationship between the U.S. and Iran came to this. That discussion has to start with the fact that, in 1953, the U.S. o…
In abandoning the Kurds in Syria, Donald Trump has committed a crime against humanity, and should be put on trial before the World Court. Apart from the catastrophic geopolitical ramifications, his action is the moral equivalent of sending Jews to the gas chambers.
I really enjoyed Diane Alberts' commentary in Wednesday's Herald, and I can relate.
I am hearing plenty of great talk regarding Community Care Network and Rutland. I have heard that there is indeed a plan in place for the rejuvenation of our dear big "little" city. I wonder, what will Christmas be like? Starbucks, Chipotle and Five Guys?
In Montpelier, Extinction Rebellion Vermont and nearly two dozen partner organizations from around the Northeast are occupying the State House grounds through Saturday afternoon in an unpermitted action called “Climate Encampment: Youth, Migration and Agriculture.”
Vermonters shouldn’t have to pay for access to their government’s public records. Government transparency is far too important to be revoked by government agencies when they feel inconvenienced.
I believe Rutland has gone through a great deal of transition in my lifetime. I have seen a downtown go from vibrant to vacant to vibrant back to vacant, and now headed to vibrancy again. Families have come and gone over multiple generations. Crime is typical for any small city and drugs are…
Years ago, as I was trying to back out of a Price Chopper parking space on the lot’s curve, looking for the cars rounding the curve that might strike me, a woman knocked on my car window. I opened the window and was dressed down for not seeing her trying to walk behind my car! I’m sitting th…
For many years, Vermonters and Americans elsewhere have been recalibrating the way we live with our household pets — not so much those fringy ferrets and potbelly pigs, but, more specifically, our longtime favorites, the dog and cat. On the farm, of course, they were free to roam; farm famil…
I just have to say there are some questions we want answered about the Rutland shooting. Allegedly, the shooter was a former mayor's son and the victim killed was a cousin to the shooter and therefore a relative of the current mayor.
Last Tuesday morning dawned cool and misty, with the fall colors coming into focus on the middle slopes of the Green Mountains around Rutland. The leaf peeping season was approaching its peak, and fall events were on tap for the coming weekend. And that day we experienced a tragedy that hit …
Once again, headlines from across Vermont have highlighted recent overdoses as a result of the opioid crisis. In a few cases, the individual’s addiction has become a signal to others.
A cold rain drips from the eaves. The dog’s occasional trips outside are either aborted or brief. The house fights the impulse to grow chilly. I fight the impulse to turn up the thermostats. There’ll be no walk in the woods today. So I face the computer screen with an attitude best described…
The vast majority of Vermonters agree: we face a climate crisis. Our climate-dependent industries are threatened. Our water isn’t clean. Flooding is harming crops and damaging roads. We have more ticks, with their associated illnesses.
“Repressed anger plays a powerful role in this addiction (to excess food). I feel that eating binges are often displaced temper tantrums or rage reactions.”
At the end of last month, 7 million people, mostly youth around the world, joined with Greta Thunberg in a global climate strike to protest the fact that our industrial societies intend to sacrifice our children to protect the present economic system, and especially the profits of the fossil…
Thirty years ago this month, Chelsea Green Press in White River Junction published our book, “The Vermont Papers: Recreating Democracy on a Human Scale.” We dedicated it to “the memory of Ethan Allen and all those hardscrabble Vermonters who, in his tradition, and through their cussedness an…
Right now at the Vatican in Rome there is a synod meeting of bishops and others on the issues of Amazonia, convened for three weeks by Pope Francis. Amazonia is a large region (almost 8 million square kilometers) that extends into eight countries: Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, …
Teachers have a legal duty to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Here in Vermont we’re not expected to wait until we’re certain abuse has occurred. In fact, we’re not allowed to wait for anything close to certainty. Our threshold for reporting is “reasonable suspicion.” If I don’t rep…
Fall has arrived. As the leaves collect on the ground, and we begrudgingly begin the process of raking up the colorful remnants of summer into endless piles, it is a good time of year to remember what urban trees provide for us.
Vermont Technical College recently joined health care leaders, dentists, academics and legislators in Burlington to help finalize the introduction of dental therapy, an innovative profession that can help combat some of Vermont’s most critical needs. I spoke about Vermont Tech’s effort to la…
Can we really change the number of individuals in our prisons?
My neighbor has some good advice for all Americans regarding President Donald Trump: I have no use for him.
Multiple sources have reported that 10,000 of our friends, the Kurds, have died fighting ISIS. Clearly, we could not have had the current level of success in this fight without them. It is also reported the Kurds have in excess of 12,000 captured ISIS fighters in their prisons.
I’m disappointed by the Rutland City Board of Aldermen’s failure to follow through on their promise to discuss the provision of implicit bias training for city officials. Alderman Tommola has ignored my communication on this topic, despite the Chair’s request he keep me apprised. He also fai…
At the most recent (Rutland City) Board of Aldermen meeting, Board President Sharon Davis made a point of calling out aldermen for “talking to people she said they shouldn’t” (Oct. 8 Rutland Herald article “President takes board to task”). While she didn’t say my name publicly, it is general…
Many Vermonters love to hike, especially in the fall. It’s a great way to enjoy the beauty of our state. It is also a chance to spend time with our dogs. What some Vermonters do not know is there are hidden dangers in the woods: baited leghold and body-crushing kill traps.
Your Sept. 28 editorial, “Let’s Get Creative,” reminds us of the importance of the creative economy to commerce in Vermont, and I value your thoughts on this. However, in listing towns making “significant investments toward integrating arts and culture into their economic base,” you have ove…
Throughout the weekend of Sept. 20-22, the staff and volunteers of Black River Good Neighbor Services conducted their semi-annual rummage sale at Fletcher Farm in Ludlow. The sale has come to be a well-recognized and eagerly anticipated event for the Black River Valley. This fall, the weathe…
I would like to know where a single father could go to get financial help. I'm a single dad and I tried calling the Lund Home; they told me they couldn't help me because I'm a male. I went down to the state offices and I got told I make too much. They have all this help for single mothers. W…
The debate over the impeachment inquiry has renewed concerns over fact and fiction. While lawmakers in the House are trying to keep the focus on whether President Trump committed a high crime by enlisting a foreign power to interfere in a U.S. election, the facts keep changing with the presi…
While visiting your great state of Vermont, we (four West Texas ladies) had a tire go flat just inside Rutland. After airing it back up, it went flat again before we could get to the Tire Warehouse.
Vermonters have recently witnessed, once again, the annual battle over health insurance rate increases for individual and small business plans. It’s worth taking a long look at just what the state thinks it’s doing, and how it does it.
On Sept. 20, millions of youth across the globe took to the streets to join the #ClimateStrike movement started by the extraordinary Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, and led in the U.S. by the young people of color who founded and direct the Youth Climate Strike. As both a father and the ex…
There’s parental concern that public education outcomes are declining and that diversity, inclusion and climate change are the focus rather than core subjects. One parental option to reset basic academic emphasis is homeschooling.
Every time I am forced by news networks to listen to the Father of Lies spread more of his excrement from the swampy Oval Office now become a colossal manure pile, I wish I had enough money to buy a 30-second replay of the handsome black man giving a warm and heartfelt hug to the lady cop wh…
Another small bright blue bag, neatly tied and full of dog poop left by the bridge on Grove Street. Many of them down the bank — some not even tied off — to be carried away by East Creek. A yellow one left on Nickerson Street for weeks, split open and providing a feast for vermin. Tossed int…
